Dark Company (35 page)

Zephyr lay in a pool of blood, gasping blindly. She lifted her hand, the medallion clenched in her fist.

“Take it, Caddy,” she said. “Live.”

Her face slackened and the light slipped away from her.

Tears spilled down Caddy’s cheeks as she untwined the bloody medallion from Zephyr’s fingers. She had saved her life. Caddy would never forget her for that. But there was no time to mourn. Red was lifting Caddy to her feet and pushing her toward the door.

“Go!” he said.

The corridor was a maelstrom of smoke and fire. Bodies of Weavers and Company men covered the floor. Caddy stumbled over the dead, choking for air. Through the confusion, someone called her name. It was April and Dillon, beckoning to her from the end of the hall.

“Come on!”

Dillon had found a set of stairs. He yelled over the noise.

“It takes us to the cliff. Where’s Poe?”

“Outside,” Caddy said. “We have to find him.”

“We’ll look when we reach the top. We have to go.”

April pulled back. “It’s too dark.”

Caddy grabbed Poe’s Zippo from her bag and sparked the flint. “It’s all I’ve got.”

“It’s good enough,” Dillon said.

They pounded up the stairs, Dillon leading the way. At the top was a tunnel, carved through the cliff. The sound of dampened thunder rumbled all around them.

“It’s the waterfall,” Dillon said.

They worked their way to the end of the tunnel, where more stairs waited. The steps were dangerously narrow.

“We’ll have to go single file.” Dillon nodded at Caddy. “You go first. I’ll go behind in case someone comes.”

They climbed, April holding the hem of Caddy’s shirt, the thundering growing louder as they went. The stairs switched directions several times. When they reached the top, a stone barricade blocked the way.

“We’re trapped!” Caddy yelled above the noise.

Dillon ran his hands over the stone. “There’s supposed to be a door here.” He sat down and began to push with his feet.

Caddy and April did the same, kicking and pushing until the stone gave way, scraping by inches along the ground. Dillon kicked harder.

“Keep going!” he shouted, forcing open a gap big enough to squeeze through, one at a time. Cold air rushed in. The waterfall roared.

“There’s something you should know,” Caddy shouted. “The city—it’s gone. And Zephyr.” She held up the medallion.

“We can’t stay here,” Dillon shouted back. “We have to find a place to hide.”

April pointed down the stairs. Torchlight swam in the darkness below. “Someone’s coming!”

They struggled through the opening onto a thin ledge, the falls a moving wall of sound in front of them. In the distance, the city burned orange against the sky. Caddy stuffed Zephyr’s
medallion into her pocket and looked over the edge of the cliff. The water plunged into a black abyss.

“I guess it’s a one-way kind of thing,” Dillon said.

April started to cry. “I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can,” Dillon said. He forced her to look at him. “Aim for the centre of the spill. Cover your head with your arms and take a deep breath before you jump.”

Caddy closed the Zippo, extinguishing the flame. “You have to do it,” she told April. “I’m not going without you.”

April crumpled to her knees. “I can’t!” she sobbed.

The torchlight swelled in the tunnel.

“They’re here!” Dillon shouted.

Caddy pulled April to her feet. “Hold your breath,” she yelled, and took her over the edge.

They hit feet first, April wrenching away from Caddy, the power of the water driving them down. Caddy jackknifed, her arms brushing stone, the water wringing her body like a rag and throwing her back to the surface. She breached, sucking air, and just in time to see Dillon enter the water. The river was fast. It grabbed Caddy’s legs, pulling her under. She fought the current, arms flailing, feet kicking toward a calm pool at the river’s edge. She floated there, scouring the banks for April. In the gloom of the rain, she saw her, clinging to a rock in a small eddy, her face pinched with pain.

“My arm,” April moaned, as Caddy swam up. “I think it’s broken.”

T
he black column roiled from the Speaker’s mouth. It bulged, and a winged beast the size of a skyscraper was born. Flapping its wings, the creature shrieked, soaring over the armies and scattering Warriors with its barbed tail. There was a powder keg flash against the sky, and Francis, Kenji and Timon dropped in, narrowly missing the creature’s claws. Timon and Kenji reverted to their etheric forms and opened with heavy artillery. Francis jumped straight for her.

“Skylark! Come back to the Light!”

Skylark fired. “Never!”

The cowboy dodged the arrow and was nearly singed by Kenji’s light blast. “It’s not too late!” he shouted.

“Old fool,” Skylark cursed. She fired again, the arrow winging the cowboy’s arm and flipping him end over end. He hit the ground, his Stetson rolling in the rain. Skylark laughed with delight as he reached for the hat, shooting it from his hand and searing a hole clean through the top.

“Dang blast it!” Francis swore. He grabbed the hat, smacked it on his knee, and planted it, still smoking, on his head. He jumped, landing right beside her.

She rocketed into the air. “Get away from me, Francis.”

The cowboy drafted in her wake. He just wouldn’t give up.

“There’s nothing for you here,” he called after her.

“Leave me alone!” She shot an arrow over her shoulder, flying higher.

“I’m not giving up.”

“I won’t come back.”

He accelerated, closing the distance between them. “The Speaker is using you. Once this is over, he’ll toss you aside.”

“He’s my father.”

“He’s a demon!”

Skylark corkscrewed upward. “Everything I want is here.”

“The boy?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know he isn’t already dead?”

Now he’d gone too far. Skylark pulled back and faced him. “Liar!” she accused, and let fly with a scorching volley of arrows. One hit his left thigh, spinning him around and dropping him like a brick.

Francis hit the ground with a grunt, reverting instantly to his etheric form. Timon and Kenji swooped in with a suppressing blast. Skylark deflected it with a well-aimed shot, bowling them over.

Francis squirmed, the arrow buried in his leg. Skylark landed next to him, sneering as she raised her foot and slowly pressed the arrow deeper with her heel. She watched the cowboy wriggle, relishing his pain. He looked so helpless.

“The boy’s dead,” Francis sputtered, filaments of ice spreading across his leg.

“You lie.”

“Ask the Speaker yourself.”

“My father would never betray me.”

“He doesn’t care about you—or the boy. He has what he wants. He doesn’t need either of you anymore.”

Skylark eased back on the arrow. What if he was telling the truth? She would find out for herself. She blasted into the air, leaving Francis suffering on the ground.

“Tell me he lives, Father.” She demanded, confronting the Speaker.

The demon cranked his head around, disconnecting from the black column, a sulphurous green cloud spewing from his mouth. His eyes were glaciers, and his skin was crystallized with frost. “You dare to question me?”

Skylark hovered over him. “The boy is mine!” she shouted.

“He is yours as sworn,” the monster growled. “Forever!” He hurled a blue vial into the tempest.

“No!” Skylark shrieked as she plunged, the vial whiffling beyond her grasp into the whirling column. Poe was gone!

With a deafening crack, her soul light fractured, the pain of loss and betrayal shattering the bonds that held her captive to the Dark. She flew at the demon, bow drawn. “Die!” she screamed.

The Speaker roared, and a ball of dark energy flew from his mouth, knocking her from the air. Skylark fell, reverting as she dropped, her robe flapping wildly around her.

Kenji soared to her defence, light beams searing from his hands. The Speaker deflected the shots back at him, sending Kenji hurtling through the air. Timon jumped between them with a protective field of light. The demon answered with a torrent of black flames and ice.

Skylark lay on the ground, clutching the Ephemeral, the Speaker’s dark poison draining in an oily pool around her. A stream of shaming images washed over her—Sebastian, Kenji’s woman, Francis, Poe. She was responsible for so much misery. Francis groaned beside her, the arrow protruding from his thigh, the icy filaments nearly covering his entire body. The light in his blue eyes was growing dim. He shivered uncontrollably. She crawled over to him.

“Forgive me, Fran.”

With the last of her strength, Skylark gripped the arrow and pulled. The arrowhead ripped through Francis’s etheric form. He coughed, black ooze spraying from his lips. Skylark held her hand over his wound. Her light was weak, faltering. She barely had enough to save herself. Her soul was guttering out by the time Kenji soared down to help her, placing his hand over hers. Their eyes met, and she silently begged for his forgiveness as their energies merged, the war raging around them.

Caddy led the way through the rain, the burning glow of the city an incendiary sunset behind them. April leaned against Dillon for support. She whimpered as she walked, wearing a makeshift sling from a strip of Dillon’s shirt. It was amazing she was on her feet at all, Caddy thought. The break was bad. It was swollen and blue, the same way hers was when she’d broken it as a child. It would have to be tended soon or she would lose it. April stumbled, her face a portrait of anguish.

“We need to stop,” Dillon said.

“It’s not safe. We’ve only just cleared the falls.”

“Then go without us.” He helped April to the ground, resting her back against a tree.

There was no way Caddy was going to leave them. “We need to put a splint on that arm.” She searched for suitable branches, collecting willow whips to secure them, thanking her father for the wisdom he’d given her as she tested the strength of the branches against her knee.

April’s arm was on a funny angle. She cried out and fainted as they attempted to set it. When Caddy was finished, the splint looked convincing enough. If nothing else, it made her feel better.

“She needs to sleep,” Dillon said.

Caddy agreed. “We all do.”

“I’ll keep watch.”

“No, I will. You stay with April.”

It would have been impossible for her to sleep anyway. Caddy positioned herself beneath a nearby hemlock. The tree afforded shelter of sorts, breaking the ceaseless drive of rain. She stuck out her tongue, catching several drops from a branch, then cupped her hands and held them up until they were full. Sipping the water, she realized how hungry she was. And tired. It can only get worse, she thought. She opened her bag and carefully checked the contents. The muslin pouches of seeds had miraculously survived the waterfall. There were five in total. She wished she’d been able to take more. Though she couldn’t identify the ones she had except for the ancient wheat that Zephyr had shown her. The others—she hoped they would be as useful.

Caddy fastened her bag shut and reached for her fluorite necklace. It was gone. It must have broken free when she jumped into the water. She wondered if her stone was at the bottom of the river, then remembered Zephyr’s medallion. It glistened as she pulled it from her pocket. Tracing the lines of the tree with her finger, Caddy vowed to continue Zephyr’s work—if she was given the chance—and the work of all the Dreamers. She sealed the promise by securing the medallion around her neck and tucking it under her shirt against her skin. She rested the back of her head on the tree trunk, allowing her eyes to close, despite the rain and the threat of the Company men in the shadows. In her mind, Caddy could see the fire from the city leaping in the sky. She thought about her father and Poe. Were they all right? The smell of burnt toast came on without warning and before she could think to resist, the bad feeling swept over her.

Caddy stood shivering in the Emptiness, her feet buried in ash, the barren grey landscape stretching endlessly in every direction. It was colder than ever. Frigid. But for the first time, there was no wind. There were no voices. It was hauntingly quiet
as if the fate of the lost souls hung in the balance, waiting for something to tip the scales in either direction. But what …?

The Speaker and his golems razed a swath through the Warriors. Skylark and Kenji focused their energy on Francis’s wound. Timon touched down, beaten and bruised, and added his energy to theirs. The light flowed in and around the four friends, strengthening and healing them. The ice crystals retreated from Francis’s form, but not fast enough.

“The Dark is advancing too quickly,” Timon said. “We must return to battle or the Light will be defeated for certain.”

Skylark blinked back the tears. “We can’t leave Francis. He’ll be killed.”

The old cowboy coughed. He screwed up his face and cracked an eye open. “Now, honey, don’t count me out just yet,” he rasped.

“Fran!” Skylark threw her arms around him.

“Let me give you a hand, old man,” Kenji said. He shouldered Francis to a standing position, propping him up with one arm.